Surprise, surprise: Montreal’s overcrowded ERs take a breather during NHL playoffs

As the Canadiens get set to play against the Lightning in Tampa Bay Tuesday night, many of the medical staff in Montreal’s chronically overcrowded emergency rooms will be breathing a sigh of relief.

Call it an unintended pleasant consequence of playoff madness: When the puck drops, so does ER attendance.

“Habs playoffs mean less people in triage during the games, period,” said a veteran ER nurse. “If it’s a really big game, there will be some staff watching but more will be taking the downtime to decompress a little.

“Montrealers love their hockey more than their health, for better or for worse,” added the nurse, who declined to have their name published so they could speak candidly about the issue.

Dr. Eddy Lang, a longtime Habs fan who used to work at the Jewish General Hospital in Côte-des-Neiges but who is now practices emergency medicine in Calgary, confirmed the phenomenon in an interview with The Gazette.

“Of course, because emergency department care is by definition unscheduled care, it’s going to be sensitive to environmental and contextual factors,” Lang explained.

 “So there are fluctuations related to sporting events, and they can have a surprising impact. So, you know, it’s true that if people are glued to their TV watching the game, they may not be visiting their grandma or their mother-in-law who may not be feeling well and needs to go to the emergency. So yes, we can see some drops related to the fact that the population is preoccupied with a big game.”

A number of studies have confirmed Lang’s observations. An often-cited research paper found that ER visits decreased by 17 per cent in Ontario during the 2010 Winter Olympics men’s hockey final when Canada defeated Team USA to capture the gold medal in overtime in Vancouver. That reduction was equivalent to about 136 fewer ER patients per hour during the broadcast.

Last year, a systematic review published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine painted a more nuanced portrait: Some sporting events, like a football match, have led to declines of 7.5 to 37 per cent in ER visits. By comparison, ER attendance often spikes during large music festivals as a result of drug overdoses.

Lang, who is also a professor at the Cumming School of Medicine in Alberta, cautioned people not to read too much into the phenomenon.

“Just because there may be some reduction in utilization during a big sporting event doesn’t mean that people are wasting the time of the health-care system by seeking care when they do go to the ER,” he said.

Lang also warned off a potential boomerang effect: A surge in ER admissions after a sporting event that can include alcohol-related injuries or people who may have postponed going to the hospital for a genuine medical problem until it suddenly grew worse and required urgent attention.

The bottom line is that Quebec’s ERs — as well as those across the country — are often dangerously overcrowded and the NHL playoffs won’t magically alter that reality.

Still, even though Lang lives in Calgary, he’ll be rooting for the Habs.

And as any doctor would, he offered some sound advice:

“As long as people exercise good judgment, they don’t drink to excess around the playoffs, and they don’t get into bar fights with the Florida fans that might be in town, we should be okay.”

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